Strange Holiday (1945)

It is a performances centric movie

Best movie of this year hands down!

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

In 1942, America, like most of its allies, was in trouble. You can't very well expect people to die for the economic interests of large corporations like General Motors, and after all, Nazi Germany and Fascist America basically shared the same ideology. In other ways, of course, the war was a gift, with a need to step up production, strikes being unpatriotic. GM, having been rather buddy-buddy with the Nazis, had a special interest in waving the flag, consequently hiring Oboler to make this propaganda piece. The result being a little too libertarian for their taste, it was shelved until 1945, when the war was just about over. It was now a warning against fifth columnists like the spy movies of the late thirties. Even without the shadow of the swastika on the wall, the presence of the German actor and typecast Nazi heavy Martin Kosleck, best known to horror fans as the mad scientist in FLESH EATERS (1964), would have served to get the none too subtle message across. Not surprisingly, it was reedited in 1950, replacing the Germans with America's former Russian allies. Ah well, as Adolf so adeptly put it: "The receptivity of the masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous." The reason why this switch could be made so smoothly is of course that this kind of propaganda is a lot of hooey. All governments exploit and enslave their citizens, playing on the fear of their neighbors, who may just turn you in, if you don't beat them to it. The idyllic existence seen in flashbacks with the well-behaved children and self-effacing wife (the holiday of the title obviously designed to get away from them for a few weeks) might just as well have been Nazi propaganda, showing what we are fighting to protect from the barbaric Jewish Bolshevist hordes, the other ingredient being fear of the power of the almighty state - any state. It was adapted from a radio play, and it shows, being mostly soliloquies and stock footage. Today, of course, we once again have to arm ourselves against evil Semites - and yes, the Russians! When will they ever learn?

I'm a great fan of Claude Rains so I enjoyed viewing this new (for me) film by such a fine actor who brings a dire warning message home to us. His perplexity and inability to comprehend what has transpired in the everyday world around him when he returns from a fishing holiday reveals a straight-line kind of thinking that sadly is quickly overturned when disaster has occurred. The progress of the story, of complete alienation from routine life as he'd known it, made me realize how fortunate we are in N. America not to have experienced the oppression of an invading army such as what many small countries in Europe suffered in WW2 under the Nazis.I don't know all the dates but it seems this film could have more logically fit into the period of wartime efforts to support 'the cause', as it has a propaganda ring to it which is ineffectual if coming after the war had already ended.The Orwellian film "Nineteen Eighty Four" also has a similar message of individual oppression although there it's in the form of Big Brother.Mention in the movie of Friday the 13th made me notice on my calendar that this week has a Friday 13th upcoming (December 2013). Small world at times!"Strange Holiday" is a reality-check story with a message and there's nothing weird about it when properly understood. Just be thankful in the West that you've never been invaded by an oppressor.This is a worthwhile film to add to one's collection particularly for Claude Rains fans.

As one of 42 people on the face of the Earth who have seen this "badfilm" all the way through I must say it is more poignant and accurate today than it was in 1945. Difficult not to mention it in the same breath as "Plan 9 From Outer Space". I cannot think anyone put it out on DVD unless it is in one of those $1 movie jubilees you find near the checkout at Wal*Mart, but if it is, remember to watch it with the lights out. Now, how the devil I am supposed to get 10 lines of text out a movie this bad is beyond me. The first time I saw it was at a 1am showing of old Republic Films on ABC late night in the early 1990s, we sought it for years afterward in the TV listings hoping to program the VCR to record it but alas, it never came on again. My...wife...my...children. Joe...Joe was there...

This a crazed film, which overrides many of the regular expectations of an audience. Rains is the complacent middle class American who goes on a fishing trip - only to discover upon his return that America has been turned into a dictatorship, and what he once held for granted and most dear is now denied him and trampled upon. America has been transformed into an occupied country.Obler is one of those Z-grade directors whose career often contained gems of movie making. As with the more talented Edgar Ulmer, the liberty of working with such low budgets meant that his personal vision was able to reach the screen more accurately, and without the interference common in larger studios. Whether or not he agreed with the stark warning explicit in Strange Holiday, the result is more like a cinematic rant, a government propaganda piece than a story. Claude Rains gives his usual cultured performance (and indeed is far too good for this material). His persona of cultured smugness, suddenly shocked into political reality, is all the more effective because of the actor he is. In some ways this is a noir in extremis. But unlike a 'true' film noir, the feeling of paranoia and persecution in Strange Holiday is entirely justified.The final scene, with Rains alone in his cell, at the end of his tether, repeating democratic tag lines and fragments of his hard learned experience is both monotonous and frightening at the same time.A film to watch, but not an easy one to enjoy. Perhaps that was the point, as the frightened anger, even panic, of the film makers is tangible throughout. As a relic of social hysteria, if nothing else, it is certainly unique.